TLDR: This is a note to self ramble to process my feelings on learning to live with 2K.
I've tried resisting 2K's nonsense for years. For a long while, I only played NBA Live 06 and NBA 2K11 on PC. I don't follow the NBA anymore, so I preferred old rosters and simplistic gameplay. Unfortunately, 2K11's My Player mode was super fun, and I recently got the itch for more.
I got 2K20 for free with PS Plus last year and decided to dive in. I'm really only interested in single-player MyCAREER and have yet to play an online game. The story was OK and the attribute/badge grinds are ridiculously tedious, but the gameplay is phenomenal. However, soon after starting, I learned MyCAREER would completely die when they shut the servers off. Knowing that all my progress was transient and would amount to nothing in a year (probably a few months now?) pissed me off to no end, so I looked for another solution.
I figured I could outsmart 2K by going back a few years and grabbing 2K16. MyCAREER was just fine aside from the cheesy story, but learning I couldn't upgrade badges or accessories - things I thought I didn't care about - bothered me too much. These offline limitations seem to have been introduced in 2K14.
NBA Live 19 to the rescue. I hadn't tried an NBA Live since Live 10, and The One looked very promising. I really like the icon and skill point system, and I appreciate the streamlined interface and less intrusive story. Unfortunately, the on-court experience is extremely mediocre in The League. I've tried a stretch big and wing shooter, and I can never get open shots against the CPU gods. On the flip side, I can score layups, grab boards, and block shots far too easily, even on All-Star+. I thought I might be having a bad start or expecting too much, but Andrew's Live 19 retrospective validated my issues. As if the gameplay wasn't bad enough, the canned commentary is absolutely horrible - even worse than Live 06. I've never heard such a dull presentation in a sports game. AFAIK, NBA Live 18 isn't much better.
So, that leaves me with going back to 2K11-2K13 to get a full MyCAREER experience, or biting the bullet and playing 2K's newer games while they give me the proverbial middle finger with their pseudo Game as a Service model. The gameplay has set the bar too high, so congrats to 2K for beating me into submission. I'll just look for free/discounted versions of their new entries and adjust my mindset to treat MyCAREER as a finite mode.